Valparaiso Dance Marathon participants danced, played various games, listened to miracle family stories, watched live performances from miracle children and other students. Every hour had a different theme and the music aligned with the theme. Dancers viewed videos and heard from people who are directly impacted by Lurie Children’s Hospital. Participants could also see their social media posts live at the event through a program called TINT, and enjoyed the opportunity to play with puppies from a local shelter.

We had a family room, where the families were able to go if they felt overwhelmed by the crowd of dancers. Many of our dancers, students at Valpo, are miracle children who were able to share their stories. We also have university faculty members who came and spoke as miracle children. Miracle children from the local community, including families that return to our event annually, shared their stories with our dancers, and actively participated in all of the event activities.

The Valparaiso University fraternity and sorority community have officially adopted Dance Marathon as their official philanthropy event, so we have 100% participation from all fraternities and sororities at the University. Our event also partnered with the Valparaiso University Law School for the second year, and Dance Marathon is one of the only campus events where there is participation from both undergraduate and Law students! We also had a Law student on our Executive Board as well as the Morale Team this year. All of this work from students, the university, our sponsor Love’s Travel Stops, and the families made it possible to raise $69,872.05 For The Kids!